from Argentan; benefactor of Le Bec monastery

Foulk d'Aunou furnished forty ships for the invasion of England (Sources: from the book "De Nova Villa" by Henry J. Swallow, edited in 1885) [https://books.google.com/books?id=zh8IAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&...]

"Richard de Nova Villa (Neuville) was cousin to the Conqueror on his mother's side. The name and parentage of his wife remain in obscurity; but it is known that he left four sons, Gilbert, Robert, Richard, ..... Ralph. From Gilbert's Clan descended the houses of Westmorland, Warwick, Latimer, Abergavenny, (and perhaps a 100 years later: Clonard .....in Ireland) "'Gilbertus Normanus' commonly called the _Admiral_, is placed at the head of the Neville pedigree by all the early genealogists. Leland styles him the Conqueror's Admiral, on the authority of a 'roulle of the genealogie of the Erles of Westmoreland'. Henry Drummond--into whose work Stapleton's researches into the Norman ancestry of the Nevills were incorporated--considered Leland's information as a mere family fabrication, introduced towards the close of the 15th century. Whether the device of the ship on the seal of Henry de Neville (date circ. 1200) supports the tradition, or whether the tradition arose from the seal, is a matter on which opinions differ. Foulk d'Anou, the uncle of Gilbert, certainly furnished forty ships for the invasion of England. There is no other evidence to support Leland's assertion that Gilbert himself was Admiral. "'From a passage in Odericus Vitalis it is clear that the Norman family of Neville issued from a Teutonic stock, some members of which offered their services to Richard, second duke of Normandy, and are known to have held high office, contracted important alliances, and possessed large fiefs in England _previous_ to the Conquest. Balderic Teutonicus was Lord of Bacqueville en Caux, and _Archearius_ under Duke William. He married a niece (or a daughter called Alix) of Gilbert Comte de Brionne, grandson of Duke Richard I., and Regent of Normandy in 1040.'" "'The fourth son of Baldric was called Richard de Nova Villa [*], or De Neuville, from his fief of Neuville sur Tocque, in the department of the Orne, the arrondissement of Argenton, and the Canton of Gacé. Hawisia, sister of Richard de Nova Villa, married Robert Fitz Erneis, who fought and fell at Hastings.'--_Vide Planché's Norman Ancestry of the Nevills, a paper read at Durham in 1865, and published in the British Archaeological Journal, Vol XXII, p.279_." Swallow adds a footnote: "[*] The name of Richard de Nevill is given by M. Leopold de Lisle in his catalogue of the companions of the Conqueror, and by the Vicomte de Magny in his book, entitled _La Nobiliare de Normandie_. The name of Ralph occurs in the _Clamores in Westreding, co Lincoln_. Ralph Neville held Thorpe of Turold, Abbot of Peterborough, but the name is omitted by Sir Henry Ellis in his _Introduction and Indexes to Domesday_. De Nove Villa _is_ found in the Roll of Battle Abbey, and in other lists of doubtful authority, but Odericus Vitalis makes no mention of the presence of any Neville at the battle of Hastings, nor does Wace in his _Roman de Rou_; but that some of the brothers, sons, or nephews of the elder Richard de Nova Villa, of not Richard himself, were present at the battle is very probable." Obviously this has to be contrasted with Ethel Stokes' article in CP (Vol IX, pp502a to 502d) where much of Swallow's words have to be consigned to the waste-paper basket. But Swallow himself put the weakest parts in quotes and seems to be very well aware that there was little evidence for any of it. Swallow's problem was that he was writing with the protection of the Bergavenny Nevilles and obviously hoped to sell copies around the various Nevill families so he could not throw out the old fables too violently. Sources: · From the book "De Nova Villa" by Henry J Swallow, pub jointly in 1885 by Andrew Reid of Newcastle upon Tyne and Griffith, Farran and Co of London, pp 2 and 3: Medieval Genealogy Soc. 2002. or Lord Powys.

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The Conqueror and His Companions by J.R. Planché, Somerset Herald. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1874. [https://archive.org/details/conquerorhiscomp01planuoft]

FULK D'AUNOU

"Cil ki ert Sire d'Alnou," another of those Norman seigneurs Master Wace leaves us to identify, is generally held to have been Fulk or Foulques, second son of Baudry le Teuton or Baldric the German, of whom I have spoken in the memoir of Richard de Courci (p. 85), nephew of Fulk, being the son of his brother Robert.

Fulk, like the rest of his brothers, took for their surnames those of their fiefs, and Fulk was at the time of the Conquest Lord of Aunou-le-Faucon, or, as Mons. le Prévost instructs us we should call it, " le Foulcon," a designation it had derived from the repetition of the name of Fulk during several generations of its ancient possessors.

However this may be, I think it probable that the Fulk d'Aunou at the time of the Conquest, and of whom there are charters as late as 1082, was a son of the first Sire d'Aunou, and a cousin of Richard de Courci and Martel de Bacqueville, the son of Nicholas de Bacqueville-en-Caux, the eldest of Baldric's children, which said Martel is also included by Wace in his catalogue of the companions of the Conqueror.

" De Bacqueville i fu Martel. "-Ronz. de Rou, l. 13,631.

A descendant of this Martel was Dapifer to King Stephen in 1143; but, although we are told by Orderic that the six sons of Baldric the German distinguished themselves by their great valour under Duke William, from whom they received riches and honours, and left to their heirs vast possessions in Normandy, not a single feat of arms or important action of any description is recorded either of them or their sons, two, if not three, of whom were in the army at Hastings.

A Fulcone Claudo is set down in Taylor's List as having contributed forty vessels to William's fleet --

"A Fulcone Claudo xl. naves; " but unless Claudo be a clerical error, and we should read Alnou, I cannot venture to appropriate the gift to the son of Baldric the Teuton.

Another son of that Baldric was the immediate ancestor of a family unequalled for fame and power by any in England. The name of Nevil is one of the greatest inscribed on the roll of Anglo-Norman chivalry; and though not mentioned by Orderic, Wace, Guillaume de Poitiers, or any other chronicler in their list of the companions of the Conqueror, we cannot, however questionable may be the authority of the Roll of Battle Abbey, challenge the insertion of it as one of the proofs of its inaccuracy.

Added to this site through the courtesy of Michael Linton, who provided scanned text.

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Excerpt from "THE BATTLE ABBEY ROLL. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NORMAN LINEAGES. IN THREE VOLUMES.—VOL. I" at http://www.1066.co.nz/library/battle_abbey_roll1/subchap13.htm

Anuay: either for Aunou or Alnet (De Alneto). The "Sire de Alnei" was one of the five knights who, at the battle of Hastings, "challenged Harold the King to come forth, and said to the English, 'Stay! stay! where is your King? he that perjured himself to William? He is a dead man, if we find him.'" This was, according to Wace's commentator, "Fulk d'Aunou, one of the numerous family of Baudry-le-Teuton, by a daughter of Richard de Bienfaite; and the place in question is probably Aunou-le-Faucon, arrondissement of Argentan. There was also in earlier times a Fulk de Aneio, or Aneto; who was of the Vernon family (the son of Osmond de Centumvillis, and one of Gunnor's sisters), and derived his name from Anet, a little south of Ivry. The two Fulks and their families seem to have been sometimes confounded." The confusion became all the greater because, though in France the two houses remained distinct as D'Aunou and D'Anet, in England the two names (as in the case of Cheney) were merged into one as Daunay. To add to the complication, a third family named Alno was settled in Somersetshire, derived from William d'Alno, who in 1086 held of Robert Gernon in Suffolk. He belonged to the house of Bricqueville, who possessed the castle of Aune or Alno in the Cotentin, and probably took its Latinized name for his own. Singularly enough, it is the only one of the three that is found in Domesday, though we are told that Fulk d'Aunon had furnished a contingent of forty vessels to William's fleet for the invasion of England. His posterity flourished in Normandy up to 1586; but there is little trace of it to be found in England.